


Two Bits

by brinnybee



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Fluff, How Do I Tag, Link's a little grouchy, M/M, Rhett does his best, Travel Delays, co-op face shaving?, shout out to des moines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 18:30:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18762016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnybee/pseuds/brinnybee
Summary: Travel is always tiring, particularly when mother nature throws a tantrum. Link doesn't like having both hands so firmly yanked off the steering wheel. Rhett's a good co-pilot.





	Two Bits

**Author's Note:**

> First fic, oh god oh god. Uh. Hi. <3
> 
> Very many thanks to rhettsuncontrollablemunchies for being the best sounding board one could ask for, and for accidentally inspiring this idea, and and for giving me the boosts needed to actually see it through.
> 
> Additional very many thanks to Grrshubz for beta-ing for me! Any mistakes are purely mine.

It had been an exceptionally taxing day, and the weather seemed to be of no mind to argue that fact.

The churning weather spun heavy-bellied clouds so low over the skyline it seemed even the most distantly enterprising high-rise could peel the things open to spill some impossible dark waterfall straight from the electric womb of the storm down onto the earth below. A mad dash through O'Hare to catch a thinly-timed connecting flight had turned into a fidgety, anxious three hour delay fueled by burnt Starbucks and exacerbated by the infuriating knowledge that current circumstances were entirely out of their control. Nothing to do but wait in the proverbial cage as Murphy flexed legal rights to rattle it, ensuring every pessimistic what-if crashed hard into reality. A sharp stick between the bars, poking and prodding and fraying away at bodies and minds already weary from the nonstop rush that was their communal travel schedule.

Not even an hour into the flight out of Chicago and they were again grounded and trapped due to weather that seemed to have a vindictive mind of its own, an absolutely prodigal storm sweeping and spinning fast and hard through the Midwest. And so Link sat on a bench seat in the Des Moines International Airport, elbows on his knees and cool fingertips pressed into the reassuringly snug space between his temples and the frames of his glasses. Hoping against hope that if he could just find the precise amount of pressure to apply that it would trip some heretofore unknown switch or valve and immediately vent out the brewing headache.

It was not objectively terrible in the moment, individually. The continual growling roll of thunder and the quick marching tattoo of rain on the roof could be enjoyable in another place or time. Rhett’s voice too, was familiar and comforting. Even as tired as it was, slipping and sliding clumsily down muddy hills into the more profound accent of their childhood. He stood speaking into his phone ten feet away from where Link sat, and if he ignored the content of the conversation it could be just any and every other day. It was only the culmination of all parts that made the general present so blearily uncomfortable, sliding over their skin like a heavy, oily film. Or maybe that was just the re-circulated airplane air, lingering, clinging stubbornly to hair and clothes and skin.

A minute or ten later a bony elbow jostled Link’s where it perched on the communal arm-rest between seats, glancing over with an owly blink as his friend settled into the neighboring seat and rested his forearm flush parallel with Link’s. Then took advantage of trading airplane seating for marginally improved airport seating by stretching long legs across the wildly patterned carpet. Silence reigned a long moment between them, thin and rasping but in the familiar way of an old bath towel, nothing new or unwelcome in the face of three decades of companionship. They had long ago made a language of silence, at home in the gaps between words as much as in the words themselves. But when Rhett remained quiet, leaning askew in his seat to stretch his back, Link took it as signal that this silence was his to break.

“No vacancies?” he questioned morosely, watching the taller man work his way through some unorthodox seatbound stretches that were testament to the hell-above-earth that was airplane legroom. “We bunkin’ here tonight, then? Haven’t slept in an airport for awhile. Overnight, at least.”

“Oh, hell no,” Rhett answered, puffing out a sigh halfway between relief and discomfort to flash his friend a lopsided near-smile. “Not all of us can drop off to sleep anywhere at the drop of a hat, y’know. Slim pickings with everyone suddenly stuck in corn country, though. Least within a reasonable range, didn’t really want to drive an hour each way if we need to be back here early. Especially in this weather. But, it’s warm and dry and even a bad mattress is miles better than an airport bench.” Sitting forward with a small sound he wouldn’t have made a decade ago, Rhett started setting his bag into order, packing away the few items he had removed during their little recess on this particular bench. “Compromise is an art, Neal.”

That had Link’s mouth turning into a frown, brows dipping together behind dark glasses rims. “Compromise just means nobody’s happy.”

It made Rhett chuckle, at the least, though whether that boded good or ill, Link couldn’t say. "Well, misery loves company and all that. And you're mine."

"Which one?" Link asked, tone a bit clipped as he aimed for faux offense but rather overshot and landed precariously on that precipice between mock and actual irritation. "Your misery or your company?"

"Ehh,” Rhett lifted a hand to punctuate his conceding sound, palm down, to wobble it side to side. “Column A, column B." The answering eyeroll was near sufficient to knock the earth off axis, and Link chose to pointedly ignore the heavy, amiable hand that clapped to his shoulder.

Yet Link climbed to his feet all the same as his friend rose, slinging his own bag over a shoulder and falling automatically into step beside Rhett as they set off in an apparently purposeful direction. This time Link held his tongue for the not-insignificant length of an airport hallway. And Rhett watched his expression from his customary space at Link’s right, granted some discretion in his observation from the loftier view. Link’s brows were still drawn together behind the safety of his glasses, mouth carved into a carefully maintained line of neutrality that often signalled an actual absence of that neutrality. Rhett’s spine gave a sympathetic, and entirely unhelpful, twinge in response to the skulking, unhappy tension etched there.

“Got us a hotel just a few miles away,” Rhett announced finally as they rounded a corner and paused to reorient themselves. The blonde glanced at an address on his phone before again picking their trajectory amongst the confusing mess of arrows and signs, trusting implicitly that Link would again follow.

He did follow, as always, with strides effortlessly stretched to match the longer gait of his taller companion. “Let me guess,” Link began as they neared a long row of exits, trying and failing to keep bubbling disappointment from his voice. Genre-savvy. And again Rhett laughed, bobbing a shoulder to bounce his bag into a position slightly more comfortable, turning a joy-weary smile to the other man. “Two beds,” was the immediate answer, a pair of long digits uncurling along the backpack strap they held by way of emphasis.

“But?” Link prompted, stepping ahead to tug the first exterior door open, holding it propped with a foot as Rhett stepped through into the small foyer marked with a bright yellow ‘9’ emblazoned on both the floor and stretched in vinyl across the outside door. They paused in tandem to wait within the small space, enclosed front and back by glass. “But,” Rhett picked up the thread after a jaw-cracking yawn, “But the place was technically full up. Put on the good ol’ southern charm, though, and our benevolent concierge Amanda took pity on we poor schmucks. Put us up for the night in one of the rooms that was blocked off for re-painting.”

“We can watch it dry,” Link quipped wryly, catching a yawn of his own into a hastily raised elbow. There was a more barbed reply on his tongue, a mention of paint fumes and worsening headaches and tetanus, but he let it catch and die on his teeth in a fleeting moment of mercy. Or maybe simply fatigue. Without that thorny seed a simple quiet bloomed uncontested between them, flourishing for the rain.

Their prophesized Uber arrived minutes later, and Link again tugged the door open. Held it as Rhett took the first, fast step through the threshold and out into the whipping wind and rain. He had the car door open at the curb three strides later and Link tucked expertly through the opened space and over to the far seat. His hands wordlessly grabbed the already-damp bag that Rhett swung into the backseat a moment behind the dark-haired man, settling it more gently into the middle space than Rhett’s method would have accomplished. The taller man folded himself into the car and confirmed their address, big hands swiping rainwater from his face.

The ride passed in a thankfully easy silence bereft of the usual midwestern pleasantries

The hungering growl of the storm was enough to dissuade or downright devour idle chatter. Barely ten minutes in and twice Link felt his forehead dip forward into cool glass as he dozed off into the window. A shift put him straighter in his seat, glancing briefly aside to catch Rhett looking much the same as he felt. Eyelids heavy and shoulders hunched, as though posing a smaller figure would make him less a target for whatever other small but sharp misdeeds the day cared to aim their direction.

Rolling his neck, Link let his head fall back against the headrest. Propped his elbow on Rhett’s bag in the center seat. Felt Rhett mimic the motion a moment later, reflexive or intended;  forearms again flush and parallel in that shared space. Familiar and comfortable.

 

* * *

 

 

The room did not smell of paint, blessedly,  but seemed it would within the day. The walls had been stripped of any decoration or hanging, some places sporting blotches of sanded white plaster. The between-beds wall lamps required for every hotel room were gone, the desk and dresser more than a few inches away from their normally snug fit against the wall and likely moved back _almost_ into place by a hasty housekeeping team putting the room back together in a hurry. But, most importantly, a pair of beautiful queen-sized beds waited majestically in the center. Headboard-less, but such true royalty did not need petty, pretty crowns to mark their station. 

Rhett dropped his bag onto the dresser and then mimicked it’s boneless flop onto one of the beds, making another almost-foreign noise somewhere between relief and distress. A new addition to their shared lexicon as the years crept and the language drifted. Still in the entry, Link peeled his damp jacket off and, finding no hooks on the bare walls, spent entirely too long getting the thing to hang off one of the door hinges. “Gonna shower,” was his soft proclamation to the royal audience plus Rhett, who hummed his own acknowledgement before sitting up to set about peeling off damp shoes and socks.

The bathroom was in much the same state as the rest of the room, walls bare but a trio of folded towels waited on the vanity in lieu of the missing towel rack. And, blessedly, the shower was perfectly serviceable, the water hot and the pressure more than adequate. A little oasis bound in the unassuming walls. Being clean certainly helped, scrubbed free of all those hours of contained and communal air, but it was the routine of something so very normal and mundane that was most welcome. It narrowed the wider view of the world- in the simple geographical sense- that travel instilled. Perspective tunneled down to self-maintenance, hands set to patterns memorized years ago.

It was the surrender to decades-old muscle memory that had the sink filled, towel and razor set in a straight line to the right, and the first stripe of shaving gel swiped across the line of Link’s jaw before he noted the absence of his reflection. A bare stretch of wall loomed unhelpfully above the vanity top, oppressively beige. “Well, shit,” Link mumbled, caught a long moment in equally beige indecision.

Muscle memory had brought him this far. Perhaps it would see him through the rest of the way. Another stripe of gel painted more of his face, set white and foaming with a swipe of his thumb.

Lacking a reflection proved a more significant obstacle than initially thought, the removal of just one usually-customary component turning even the habitual act of shaving just alien enough to suddenly feel a foreign art. Being tired, irritated, and lacking in equipment made the first nick expected. It was inevitable. Even the second cut fit into the acceptable predictions of this experiment, though it came paired with a spat curse as a questing swipe of his knuckles came away striped with a thin smear of blood.

It was the third cut that finally bested the overtaxed dam that was the fragile balancing act of the day, crumbling all at once to send a deluge roaring downhill that tore up everything by the roots. “Shit!” Link squawked at that third sharp pain along his jaw, biting more painful than the last two had managed. Recoiling in the same moment, razor dropping into the sink, his free hand shot upwards to reflexively tamp the pads of his fingers over the already-welling cut. On the way up his knuckles crashed into one of the two drinking glasses perched on the vanity, tipping it off the base with a nearly insulting ease. It rolled once across the counter with a near-melodic chime before toppling off the edge to shatter on the tiled floor.

A string of expletives followed the crash, sharp as those glittering shards against the silence that followed as Link stared hard at the broken glass, hands curled into his wet hair to let his fingernails bite into his scalp. Seeking an anchor or clarity through self-controlled sensation, something. Anything.

His heart was beating so hard in his ears and the thunder still argued so loud overhead that Link entirely missed the first knocks at the bathroom door. It was Rhett’s voice, muffled through the barrier but still as familiar as everything _should_ have been, that finally pulled his attention from the unhappy internal whorl. Another knock and an uneasy query sounded.

“Link? You okay?”

A sigh rattled through tight ribs, breathing life over the sparking beginnings of another internal war. Was it better to admit the absolutely ludicrous sequence of events and personal failures that had dotted the past fifteen minutes, or better to face those exact things alone?

Reflexive, Link stepped gingerly away from the vanity and flipped the lock on the door. It opened a moment later to leave Rhett framed in the threshold, obviously taking in the scene and piecing the puzzle together as green eyes took a slow trip around the face of his friend, then the room. The silence stretched again and Link rankled beneath it, mind whirling through a hundred pending comments, a thousand quips, a million jokes that would further obliterate whatever rubble yet remained of Link’s composure. _Link is clumsy, Link is reckless, Link shouldn't have sharp objects, of course he would manage to hurt himself._ And so when Rhett opened his mouth Link made sure to force his own voice above whatever words were coming, reaching greedily for control of the moment.

If the silence were to break, he would be the one to swing the sledgehammer.

“There’s no damn mirror,” was the first thing that fired off Link’s tongue, explanation and blame in one. “I just wanted a shave, man, so I don’t look as shit as I feel but there’s no mirror so I cut myself. Then knocked the glass over and broke it, so now my face is bleeding, there’s glass everywhere, and I’m going to walk around tomorrow with one dumbass line shaved down my face.” Despite that brief vent of pressure the tension crept right back in the moment Link let silence return, now penned into the bathroom by the figure in the doorway.

“Well. You _are_ bleeding,” Rhett contributed after what felt a few too many pounding heartbeats that Link was sure must be audible, stepping into the bathroom and seeming to displace some of the tension merely through presence. Mindful of the glass littering the floor, he reached carefully beyond Link to pull an indiscriminate handful of tissues from the box embedded into the front of the counter. Without prompt or permission one was swiped up along the bend of Link’s jaw, then settled into place with a soft press. Gentle but firm all at once and the gesture was something both exceedingly comfortable and terribly unwelcome. “Hold that there,” Rhett suggested, and neither were surprised when one of Link’s hands lifted, compulsory, to expertly thread fingers into the gaps between Rhett’s and press the tissue to his own face. No mirror needed. The blonde rolled his head towards the door as he withdrew his hand, tone again held carefully in the realm of suggestion. “Step on out, bo, I’ll clean up that glass while you deal with not exsanguinatin’.”

“Thanks,” Link replied, stepping all the same out of the bathroom. It felt like a retreat. A concession. A warm hand landed briefly on his bare shoulder blade as he crossed the threshold, giving an encouraging little push.

_A compromise,_ a more rational voice supplied in the back of his mind as he settled on the end of one of the beds. Not his own, but just as familiar. And somehow easier to yield to because of it.

Time dragged by to the beat of the storm, but Rhett still hadn’t left the bathroom by the time Link had wiped his face clean and his tissues stopped coming away sporting vivid red blotches. He had just dragged himself to his feet, weary and irritated and now sheepish, to go see what he could do to help when the other man finally re-emerged back into the main room. One of the unused towels was slung over his shoulder, Link’s razor, a wash-cloth, and the compact, travel-sized bottle of shave gel in one hand. The room’s ice bucket was held in the other, sloshing gently as Rhett deposited the lot onto the desk near the wall opposite the beds. Filled with water evidently.

“What’re you doin’?”

Rhett pulled one of the chairs out by way of answer, extending an arm to indicate the vacant seat. “Finishing your shave. I’m a bit out of practice,” the hand lifted to brush knuckles against his beard, and the joking admission set a smile into the taller man’s eyes and voice. “But I can probably manage okay. At least until you’ve got a mirror again.”

Something pleasant and painful and embarrassing welled up in the cage of Link’s ribs, creaking against the confines and the vice there that _today_ had cinched tight. It forced a puff of air from his lungs, colored just enough at the edges to be called a laugh. “C’mon, man. I’m sorry I freaked out, it was a long day and I just lost it for a sec. But we can just drop it. It’s-- it’s fine. I can fix it tomorrow.”

“Nope.” There was no longer a suggestion in the tone. Stooping, Rhett patted the chair’s cushion. “I can fix it now, or I can get it while you’re sleeping, Neal. Ball’s in your court.”

Link sighed again, a hand slipping up his face to knock the glasses up his nose while a thumb and forefinger rubbed at his eyes. But Rhett had near guaranteed compliance by giving Link the illusion of choice; he had no doubt the blonde would follow through on the threat-slash-promise-slash-joke. They had decades of history to back up that hypothesis. And so Link could sit in the chair of his own volition and voluntarily let his friend play barber, or let the situation again slip out of his hands.

He moved to the chair, trying very hard not to notice that self-satisfied glint in Rhett’s eyes, or the way the pleased grin rounded the apples of his cheeks. “All right, do your worst. Guess you have to make me bleed four more times to do worse than I did.”

“That’s the spirit.”

The other chair was turned to face Link and Rhett sunk to sit on the edge, scooting in close. Their knees knocked and automatically shifted to accommodate the close quarters, and once settled Rhett popped the cap on the shave gel and depressed a line out onto the pads of his fingers. His other hand dipped the washcloth into the water in the ice bucket, squeezing the excess out. He saw Link’s mouth and the muscles of his throat work around a pending question or comment or complaint meant to preserve some self-owned amount of control of the moment, and so quickly swiped the wet cloth across the dark-haired man’s cheek before any could be voiced. “Just trust me, I got you.”

Link’s brows drew together behind his glasses, that sheepishness worming to the top of the quagmire settled in his guts again. Trust had never been a question between them. To have the request, a reminder, need be vocalized felt somehow like a failure, another casualty of the day. “I trust you,” Link replied, softer than perhaps intended. An apology. Another compromise.

The gel followed, cool and slick after the warm, soft rasp of the washcloth. And that was a familiar sensation, as was the circular pressure of fingertips rubbing it into a lather that followed, though it was not Link’s own hands working through the motions. His own fingers were knotted together and pressed between his knees. His own fingers would not have moved with such careful intent, would not have needed such guided delicacy to map the well-known planes of his own face. His own fingers would not have bothered to cherish the moment, to commit the bends and lines of his own features to vaulted memory.

Rough fingertips rasped against his stubble below the blooming lather, catching and dragging in a swirling pattern that left pleasant little prickles behind. They all trickled backward to collect and condense at the nape of his neck in what felt like a static little puddle, roiling and tingling there in some shallow imitation of the smothering storm overhead. There was an impulse to free a hand and swipe at the feeling, half convinced there must be something physical settling there, but Link pressed his knees harder against his caught hands to keep still.

Rhett wiped his hands clean on the towel, leaning aside only long enough to claim and wet the razor before moving back in. Closer than before, green eyes narrowed slightly as he studied the task, and the man, set before him. Familiar both, but just foreign enough at these new angles. It took three experimental tries to settle the razor into a usable hold and slant, fingers wanting to fall back into known habits. Hunkering forward, again just barely perched on his own chair, Rhett briefly held the razor up in the small space between them in silent preface. It glinted briefly even in the dim lamplight. Sharp and wet.

“Okay,” Link mumbled or thought, letting out a breath he hadn’t meant to keep trapped in that cage of his ribs. Cool metal touched briefly to his cheekbone, and Link watched Rhett’s brows dip together in concentration. The razor repositioned a fraction to the right, touching down to rest there a moment before being pulled downward with a firmer pressure. It traced a stripe across the hollow of his cheek and just to the bend of Link’s jaw, baring the skin there to the cooler touch of the room’s air-conditioning.

Apparently satisfied with the first evidence of his work, Rhett’s head dipped briefly as a smile curved the edges of his mouth. An approving hum resonated in his throat as he gave the razor a quick swish in the ice bucket-turned-basin. Bolstered for a successful first attempt, Rhett cleared the next swathe with as smooth a swipe from the first place he landed the razor.

Trying to watch Rhett from so close-- fascinating as it was to see the contrast of darkly intent eyes in an otherwise quietly concentrated expression-- made Links own eyes cross and so he let them dip closed by the third loop. His shoulders rose and rolled back when he felt the razor leave his face again, trying to dislodge that little static pocket nestled behind his neck.

It must have been more movement than he thought, as he felt a hand settle, steadying, on his bare shoulder. Then, much like that first touch of the razor, reposition. The next touch fell on the curve of muscle between shoulder and neck, and Rhett’s thumb skipped across his throat to nestle in the soft space below the opposite corner of his jaw. Soft pressure was effortlessly translated to motion, and Link obligingly tipped his head to an accommodating angle.

First, left. Then back, up. Willing to compromise here, now, breathing the shared air of the close space between them in a private moment. Link kept his eyes closed, though, mindful perhaps of all the oppressive stimuli of the day and so reducing the input by one sense. The visual feedback was unnecessary here, the sense wordlessly but willingly ceded unto the care of his partner and friend in this agreement, the strange contract written on flesh and foam and signed with steel and regard.

Voluntarily blind, Link let Rhett continue in his off-brand of care.

It left him still the sound of ceaseless rain and rolling thunder, now distinct from the tick-thump of his own heartbeat rushing softer below it. Still felt the warm hand and rough fingers tripping along his jaw and throat, guiding by touch to the needed angles to let the chill razor chase off the rest of the foam. The smell of juniper and soap, and generic hotel laundry detergent as a towel was suddenly pressed below his nose to wipe clean the lower half of his face.

And suddenly the taste of his heart leaping into his mouth when a kiss pressed to his forehead, dichotomous and instantly recognizable between pliant lips and scratchy whiskers.

"Really, now?” Link chuckled, eyes finally creaking open to find a softer country than that which he had departed staring back at him, colored in greens. Rhett dropped the razor and washcloth into the makeshift basin and flipped the towel off his shoulder and directly over Link’s head. Set a hand atop it and gave a brisk rub for good measure before gathering up the items on the desk and rising to tote them into the bathroom.

Rhett didn’t need the missing hallway mirror, or a backwards glance, to perfectly catalog the precise expression of false vexation (far too soft at the edges to be convincing) Link pouted at his back as he disappeared again into the bathroom.

The towel was still draped over Link’s hair when he joined Rhett in the beige-tiled space a moment later, idly rubbing the dry cloth over still-damp hair. The razor had been rinsed and set near Link’s travel case on the vanity with the bottle of gel. Rhett washed his hands, reached out to snag the ends of Link’s towel to dry them off.

“You know,” Rhett broke the silence easily, a sweet sort of cracking like ice melting in spring, eyes again narrowed a bit as he made show of inspecting the other’s face. “For how out of practice I am, I didn't do half bad. Don’t forget to tip your stylist.”

Hair sufficiently dried to spare him sleeping with a wet pillow, and lacking hook or rack, the darker-haired man tossed the towel onto the edge of the bathtub. Ran his own fingers along his jaw. Smoothed. “Since I got the shave, I could give you the haircut,” Link offered, gesturing to the blonde ‘do that sat a bit limp after even their brief trip through the pouring rain. Rhett laughed, truly, and Link felt lighter than he had all day for it. “Hard pass,” he chuckled, grabbing Link’s shoulder fondly as he sidled past and out of the bathroom. “‘Preciate the offer, though.”

Rhett was in bed already when Link finally abandoned the bathroom for the night, having dried and re-packed all his supplies, folded the clothes he had changed out of, brushed his teeth. Comfortable routines now so easy to step back into as the world no longer caught and chafed on every tiny edge and multitude. It was the momentum of the reclaimed thoughtlessness of those routines that had Link settling onto the edge of the occupied bed and sweeping beneath the duvet without question.

Tile-chilled feet poked and prodded their way into a warmer tangle, and Link slid into the arm obligingly extended as easily as coming home. The storm still grumbled beyond the windows and roof, an endless attempt to spark again the unhappy gossip that had soured the day. But the pair settled comfortably into their shared bubble of quiet, comfortable and familiar. They had, over decades, built a language all their own out of this silence, as easy to navigate as their mother tongue after such long practice.

Link had gone heavy and soft by the time he abandoned their sacrosanct vernacular, the full weight of his skull sinking against Rhett’s bicep, sweeping the quiet aside with a mumbled, “Thanks, Rhett.”

A rumble answered, warmer and dearer than the thunder. “We’ll be home tomorrow, buddyroll.” Link felt the arm cushioned below his head shift and sidled nearer to let Rhett's arm bend freely behind him. The taller man's fingers were drawn, magnetic, to the place at Link's nape where that static tingle had been. Two fingers sifted through dark hair, two across soft skin just below the hairline. "You good?"

Tomorrow they would be home, with the mundane weight of the day quickly fading into a hindsight that would reveal the general harmlessness of delayed flights and poor booking in the unending march of things. But for now there was a not insignificant part of home huddled up warm and pliable at his side, something to orbit and anchor when the rest of the world seemed to be spinning too fast or too far to reach.

“I'm great,” Link answered, without compromise.


End file.
